CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



would be interfered with, the king withdrew his 

 countenance from it. Nevertheless, in 1698, a 

 gallant expedition was sent out by the Scots, 

 who founded a town called New Edinburgh, 

 about midway between Puerto Bello and Cartha- 

 gena, and under the ninth degree of latitude. 

 During the winter months, everything seemed 

 likely to answer the expectations of the colonists ; 

 but summer brought disease ; and on their pro- 

 visions running low, they found, to their infinite 

 consternation, that they could get no supplies, 

 the Spanish and English colonists of the neigh- 

 bouring countries being forbidden to deal with 

 them. In May and September 1699, ere intelli- 

 gence of these circumstances could reach home, 

 two other expeditions had sailed, containing 1800 

 men, who were involved on their arrival in the 

 same disasters, and ultimately, being attacked by 

 the Spaniards, the unfortunate colony was obliged 

 to surrender. Very few ever regained their native 

 country, and the large sums vested in the under- 

 taking were irrecoverably lost. The massacre of 

 Glencoe and the Darien expedition caused the 

 king to be bitterly hated by the Scotch nation, and 

 largely increased the ranks of the Jacobites. 



The war with France, which commenced in 

 1690, was carried on both by land and sea till 

 1697, with varying success on land, but complete 

 success for the English and Dutch fleets, which 

 gained in particular the great battle of La Hogue. 

 In September of that year, both sides being ex- 

 hausted, the Peace of Ryswick was concluded, by 

 which it was agreed that the fortresses taken by 

 Louis in Flanders and to the south of the Pyrenees 

 should be restored to Spain, and that neither 

 sovereign should countenance conspiracies against 

 the other. Before this, Louis had agreed to ac- 

 knowledge William as king of England. In 1700, 

 in consideration that he and his sister-in-law Anne 

 had no children, her only surviving son, the Duke 

 of Gloucester, having died that year, the famous 

 Act of Succession was passed, by which the crown, 

 failing these two individuals, was settled upon the 

 next Protestant heir, Sophia, Duchess of Hanover, 

 daughter of Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of 

 James I. 



About this time the causes of a new war took 

 their rise in certain disputes respecting the suc- 

 cession to the crown of Spain. The title to that 

 sovereignty, in the event of the death of the exist- 

 ing king, Charles II. without heirs, was claimed 

 by the king of France, the Elector of Bavaria, and 

 the Emperor of Germany, through various female 

 lines of descent A secret treaty, to which Eng- 

 land was a party, was entered into for preventing 

 the whole from falling into the hands of the reign- 

 ing family of France, whose possessions would 

 then have been so great as to be inconsistent, it 

 was thought, with the independence and safety of 

 neighbouring states. At the death of the king of 

 Spain, however, a will was produced, in which it 

 appeared that he had appointed the Duke of 

 Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, to be his suc- 

 cessor. The French king lost no time in en- 

 forcing the pretensions of his grandson, who, 

 under the title of Philip V. became the founder of 

 the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. 



About the same time (September 1701), James, 

 the exiled English king, died at St Germain, 

 leaving his pretensions to his son, James, Prince 

 of Wales, now a boy of thirteen years of age, and 



156 



henceforth generally recognised in Britain by the 

 epithet of the Pretender. Without regard to the 

 Treaty of Ryswick, Louis XIV. acknowledged 

 this young person as JAMES III. King of Great 

 Britain, by which he added greatly to the hostile 

 feeling which his other proceedings had already 

 created in the British king and people. A war 

 was accordingly in preparation, when King 

 William died in his fifty-second year (March 8, 

 1702), in consequence of a fall from his horse. 



William was a prince of commanding ability, 

 particularly in military affairs. His ruling senti- 

 ment was a wish to reduce the power of the king 

 of France, which he was able in no small degree 

 to effect. His person was thin and feeble, and his 

 ordinary demeanour was cold, silent, and some- 

 what repulsive. It was only in battle that he 

 ever became animated or easy. He was a man 

 of undoubted sincerity and conscientiousness, and 

 sincerely attached to toleration in religion. 



The reign of King William is remarkable for 

 the first legal support of a standing army, and for 

 the commencement of the national debt It is 

 also distinguished by the first establishment of 

 regular banks for the deposit of money and the 

 issue of a paper-currency. Formerly, the business 

 of banking, as far as necessary, was transacted by 

 goldsmiths, or through the medium of the public 

 exchequer, by which plans the public was not 

 sufficiently insured against loss. In 1695, the 

 first public establishment for the purpose, the 

 Bank of England, was founded by William 

 Paterson, a scheming Scotsman ; and next year 

 the Bank of Scotland was set on foot by one 

 Holland, an English merchant ; the capital in the 

 former case being only ^1,200,000, and in the 

 latter, the tenth part of that sum. 



The most profound writer of this reign was John 

 Locke, author of an Essay on the Human Under- 

 standing, an Essay on Toleration, and other works. 

 The greatest name in polite literature is that of 

 John Dryden, remarkable for his energetic style of 

 poetry, some dramas, and his translations of Virgil 

 and Juvenal 



QUEEN ANNE MARLBOROUGH's CAMPAIGNS. 



William was succeeded by his sister-in-law, 

 ANNE, second daughter of the late James II. ; a 

 princess now thirty-eight years of age, and chiefly 

 remarkable for her zealous attachment to the 

 Church of England. Her husband was Prince 

 George of Denmark, a person of insignificant 

 character. The movement against the king of 

 France had not been confined to Great Britain ; 

 it was a combination of that power with the 

 Emperor of Germany and the states of Holland. 

 Queen Anne found it necessary to maintain her 

 place in the Grand Alliance, as it was termed ; 

 and John Churchill, Earl, and afterwards Duke, 

 of Marlborough, the husband of her favourite, 

 Sarah Jennings, was sent over to the continent 

 with a large army to prosecute the war in con- 

 junction with the allies. Now commenced that 

 career of military glory which has rendered the 

 reign of Anne and the name of Marlborough so 

 famous. In Germany and Flanders, under this 

 commander, the British army gained some signal 

 successes, particularly those of Blenheim, gained 

 on the 2d of August 1704 ; and Ramillies, on the 

 I2th of May 1706; in Spain, a smaller army, 





